


Tales of a Demogorgon Owner

by RadScavver



Series: Steve Harrington, Demogorgon-Whisperer [4]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Child Neglect, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nightmares, Self-Esteem Issues, Slice of Life, Unresolved Tension, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22911811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadScavver/pseuds/RadScavver
Summary: When someone ends up with an unexpected pet, there's bound to be some interesting occurrences.
Relationships: Demogorgon & Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Series: Steve Harrington, Demogorgon-Whisperer [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609186
Comments: 20
Kudos: 90





	1. Sleep, December 1983

Steve’s had some trouble sleeping ever since that night. It’s been a few weeks now, with the already bitter autumn weather dipping into frigid as December blankets Hawkins in snow. He’s spent so many long nights watching the world get colder and quieter. Whiling away late hours with phantom tickles and itches under his skin, in his head. And then...there’s his ‘guest.’ Or, pet, maybe? Whatever Wiggles could be called, It’s here to stay.

Sometimes, It lurks in the shadows around the Harrington house. For the first week or so, he’d downed nearly a half bottle of aspirin thanks to the strobe effect of all the lights in his house. His head had been so achy he’d thought it would crack open like an egg. Thankfully, or miraculously, Wiggles’ weird presence seemed to settle if It stayed in their world for longer than hour or so.

Still seemed to crop up whenever It went between worlds, though.

That had been part of the problem at the beginning, the lights. Nightmares had been bad enough. All those what-ifs and could’ve-beens boiling over like a forgotten pot on the stove, flooding his brain with horrific images. More than once in a night Steve had been ripped from sleep by the image of Nancy in Barb’s place, half-eaten with strangely bloated flesh in faint gas-blue light. He’d had a night or two where it was Jonathan, torn open and missing his pinched face, spread beneath the flared maw of Wiggles. Once in a while, it would be Chief Hopper, or Joyce Byers, or even little Will Byers.

He never saw himself in them. Not once.

The constant light show would only make everything worse. Aching puffy eyes would throb in the flicker; Steve had even broken down into tears from the agony of it at one point. Come to think of it, the flickering had changed maybe a day or two after that embarrassing event.

Tonight, though, tonight is a lucky one. He’s fairly wiped out from school, and the basketball practice that followed, so he’s yawning by nine. Wiggles didn’t show up when he’d gotten home, so Steve is comfortable in assuming It’s in the Upside Down. At a quarter to ten he decides to take his luck for what it is and tries for bed. Maybe a minute after his head hit the pillow, he’s out.

It doesn’t last.

Steve wakes like he’s breaching after being dunked in a pool, gasping and sort of light-headed, with the after-burn of too many flashing lights still clinging to the back of his eyelids. A swarm of festive lightning bugs so at odds with the shadow of blood spreading across shabby carpet. Nancy’s glassy eyes staring up at absolutely nothing; Jonathan’s skull, pearly white against the darkness, grinning eerily from between the Demogorgon’s feet. Steve bites back a sob.

These horrible dreams always make him feel so off-balance, like the world’s spinning out and his skin is the only anchor he has. He forces his eyes open because he can’t stand the memory of his worst fears. And finds one staring back at him.

Howling, he shoves himself up, and only stops when he slams his head painfully into the wall. All he can do is hiss at the ache and curl up. From where It looms over the bed, Wiggles makes a quiet warbling chirrup. Blessedly, It looks smaller when Steve’s not lying vulnerable in his bed.

“Jesus Christ,” he groans, heart jack-hammering behind his sternum, “dude, this can’t be a thing. Don’t  _ watch _ me sleep.”

Wiggles merely tilts Its head and rumbles. Steve grabs his pillow and uses it to muffle what is—most definitely not—a whine.


	2. Surprise, January 1984

“Nance, come on, please?” Steve begs through the door to the bathroom. “It was an accident!”

Her voice is sharp, even with the barrier between them. “No, I’m going home.”

“Nance-”

“I want It gone and then I’m leaving! I can’t do this with that thing around.”

With a huff, Steve slumps against the wall across from the door. There’s a churring. Wiggles pokes Its twisted face around the corner to stare at him, petals twitching and curling. Steve can’t help the way frustration roils in his belly. Somehow, like it can tell, Wiggles hunches lower to the ground and slinks out of sight. In his head something cold and slimy drags down toward his shoulders. It kind of feels like shame.

And then suddenly, the frustration isn’t at Wiggles anymore. No, now it’s actual anger. Not at the Demogorgon, but at himself, at Nancy.

Sure, he’d wanted to have some quality time with his girlfriend. Things had been tense and stilted since Steve’s screw up in November. Back when he was more worried about the consequences of what would happen when his parents flitted in to roost for a day or two before soaring off again for another trip around the world. Not even his stand-off with the Demogorgon, his help in getting Will back to his family, had really done anything to stable their foundation. That’s why he’d hoped that a nice, quiet date night would do them some good.

And Wiggles…

“Look, he doesn’t get why you don’t like him.”

The door swings open, and Nancy is glowering at him with red-rimmed eyes. She’s so pale. Gleaming in the light, wisps of hair cling to her face. There’s a speckling of dark spots along her shirt collar. He doesn’t know if it’s from washing her face or if it’s from the tears that had burst when Wiggles had thumped into the living room. She’d been up, down the hall, in the blink of an eye. There’d been no time to call her back before the bathroom door had closed with a boom like mortar fire.

“It’s a  _ monster _ . I’m not going to like It!” Spots of red color her cheeks; they make her seem sickly. He wonders why he can’t find the beauty he’d seen before in her anger. “That thing  _ ate _ Barb and tried to kill Will!”

Steve doesn’t know what’s making his rage burn brighter. Maybe it’s the faint feeling of slime glazing his spine. Whatever’s causing it, he straightens up and levels her with a flat look.

He snarls, “Plenty of animals eat people. Lions and sharks and bears, you name it. Are they monsters, too?”

“That’s different, Steve, and you know it!”

“So Wiggles came from a different world. Guess what  _ Nancy _ ? Different worlds means different animals!”

“That thing is-”

“Stop calling him that!”

They both still, staring each other down and practically snorting like a pair of bucks battling for territory. Used to be, he would love that furrow in her brow, how her jaw would lock with her determination to see things through. All it makes him feel now is irritated because he knows it means she won’t listen to anyone except herself.

He knows a losing battle when he sees one.

“Look,” he soothes, shoulders dipping as he forces himself to let go of his anger, “maybe this was too soon. It’s only been a couple weeks; we can try and do this some other time. We can have a night out, okay? Just...just let me drive you home.”

She says nothing. Turns on heel, nose in the air. Steve watches her stomp out down the hall and does nothing to stop her. A moth wing tickles his cheek. When the front door slams, he flinches back. He feels the barest pressure at his lower back and knows that Wiggles is crouched behind him.

With a belly-deep sigh, he reaches back to pat the huddled creature.

“I know you didn’t mean it, buddy. She’ll come around.”

He tries not to grimace when Wiggles makes a sound that he can only take as a dubious ‘sure.’


	3. Stress, March 1984

Okay, so, Steve knows he’s not the brightest bulb in Hawkins. If he’s being perfectly honest, he’d probably call himself one of the dullest, but there are a few guys in his grade who make  _ rocks _ look smart. Still, Steve’s not the ‘King’ of the high school for his brain. Or, well, he wasn’t.

That was before he started dating Nancy. Before a little boy that vanished into the night, and a giant monster with a face that could send everyone running. Before a group of little geniuses became a regular thing in his life. 

Steve’s trying now.

He wants to be smarter, so that Nancy won’t get that strain around her eyes when she sees his homework. He wants to actually be someone smart enough for those kids to look up to. He wants to be the smart boy Missus Byers says he is. All these new people in his life, all seeing so much in him, of him, and he just wants to  _ be _ what they see.

But, it’s so hard. He doesn’t know why he can’t seem to get these things down. He wishes the words would stop playing tricks on him; that the letters and numbers would just stay  _ still _ . How the hell does everyone else wrangle the damn things?

“What was that?” Someone whispers from off to his right.

“Did you see that?” Another murmur from near the front.

Steve feels the hair lift along his arms, at the nape of his neck. Like there’s little feelers tickling the skin. Eyes darting around, he feels like everything’s become sharper, clearer. No one looks scared. There’s no fear lingering in the air, even though he can almost taste the miasma of hormones and sweat clinging in the back of his throat. Maybe one or three kids glance up at the ceiling and then towards the classroom door. His eyes follow the same path, but there’s nothing really out of place. He taps his pencil against the scuffed epoxy of his lab table.

Despite the faint prickle of ants under his fingers, Steve tries to refocus on the gibberish the teacher’s scratched out on the blackboard. It’s already hard enough to focus on the mischievous type in his books. The chicken scratch scrawled across that ugly green, the way it fades in and out like it’s slithering through grass, is Steve’s own special version of hell. Just when he thinks maybe he’s figured it out, it becomes a brand new combination of nonsense. All the chemicals and their amounts doing a supersonic jitterbug. He really wants to just grab the slate and shake it until all the letters fall out onto the floor so he doesn’t have to fight this battle anymore.

“Look,  _ look _ , there it is again!”

The whisper is sharp and hissed. Now, there are more students glancing nervously around. Even the teacher’s stuttered to a halt, brows furrowed and gaze jumping from light to light. Steve feels something fluttering in his throat. His mouth is dry and then the lights flicker wildly. A strange cottony feeling is wrapping around and around his head.

Steve’s not the smartest, but he knows this.

Knows that in the next minute that there’s going to be a monster tearing through the wall. A creature that doesn’t know any of the students around him; that will hiss and screech and snarl. A beast that will tear through them like tissue paper. Will shred them to ruin, leave them as gory blood-and-bone confetti even as they try to run.

He has a dreadful feeling that it wouldn’t just end with the chem room. No, it’d be everyone, and he won’t let that happen because he’s too stupid to figure out his teacher’s shit handwriting.

Lurching up, he stammers out some excuse. Something about going to find a janitor. Then he’s bolting out of the room like his ass is on fire. He can feel bile rising, making his mouth water, and he pushes himself to be faster, to make his legs stretch farther. Each step eats up the distance between Steve and freedom. The lights are dancing now in the halls. In the rooms he passes. If he focuses, he could pick out the startled chatter of each group of students and weary teachers. But there’s no time for that. Not with Wiggles on the way.

The metal door swings easily under the brute force of Steve's panic and slams hard into the outer wall. He wants to wince at the harsh clatter of it, but the grass ahead of him is blackening fast. Already the familiar odor of decay is spreading. Somehow the scent is almost warm despite the residual chill of a late winter.

“No, no, no,” he pleads, words soft as he gnaws at his bottom lip. There has to be something he can do to keep the Demogorgon at bay. “Come on, buddy,  _ please _ don’t do this.”

Something creeps up one side of his brain, down the other.

That’s it!

Screwing his face up in concentration, Steve tries to find that weird sensation that he’s come to know as Wiggles. It’s almost like trying to catch a fish with his bare hands. Slippery, wriggly. For a brief second, when he thinks he’s finally got a grasp on it, there’s a sharp tingle almost like a bite from a sweat bee. He only tries harder because he’s not going to let Wiggles turn those phantom bugs against him.

When that sneaky tug in his mind finally seems to click, Steve just thinks as hard as he can about the woods. He tries to imagine the damp rotten leaf cover, the ominous skeletons of trees waiting for spring rebirth. There’s a sharp buzz of disapproval. He forces the thoughts, sending his own agitation back down that shivery-shuddery  _ living _ tendril in his brain. Other people are off limits, it’s a rule he’d set and demanded Wiggles comply to, so he focuses on that memory as well. The Demogorgon’s unearthly chittering is wispy in his ears. There, just for a breath, then gone like he’s imagined it.

Ahead of him, the ground no longer looks like it’s drooping under some unknown weight; the decomposition has stopped spreading.

Then everything just...settles. Steve stumbles back, collapses against rough bricks, and finds himself gasping for air. With a shaky hitched exhale, he rubs at the bridge of his nose, his throbbing temples.

“So much for catching up on chemistry,” he laments.


	4. Shame, May 1984

It was a beautiful day. Sunny, no clouds, just enough of a breeze. And, most importantly, it’s the first day of summer break. So that means Steve and all his classmates are free to do whatever they want without having to worry about homework or tests or running late. It means he actually has the time to sleep in; maybe take Nancy out on a date to celebrate another year wrapped up.

Or...that’s what it should’ve meant.

Instead, everything’s gone sideways as his parents had apparently decided to pop in to “check in” on him. The fact that they didn’t bring any luggage in with them already settles his question of how permanent this visit is.

Hell, they probably didn’t even realize they didn’t have more than one or two outfits a piece in their room. Steve knows. Knows because he used to go in their bedroom each time they took off again, because he couldn’t fight the need to count the dwindling number of dresses and button-ups and loafers. It was a habit he’d picked up when he was maybe ten years old. Now...now, it’s just a twisted sort of hourglass. A countdown to the inevitable time where they simply forgot they even owned a house in little nowhere Indiana. Until they forgot they had a son.

But right now, Steve is anything but forgotten.

And it’s sort of scary how much he wishes he was.

Because that would be better than this.

His father heaves a sigh, for the third time in as many minutes and just as gut-deep as the ones before, and saws at his steak with obvious aggression. Every so often, his knife scrapes the china. The screech of it ratchets up the tension in Steve’s shoulders like the key to a music box. Makes him grind his teeth.

Steve is practically hunched over his own plate, moving slowly and carefully to keep from drawing his father’s attention back on to him. Not after the man had only  _ just _ stopped spitting his disappointment like venom.

Stupid. Brain dead. Lazy. Useless. Failure.

_ Accident. _

They’re not new terms. Hell, it isn’t anything Steve hasn’t heard face-to-face  _ and _ casually tossed into conversations with influential guests. His dad hasn’t been subtle about his shame at having Steve for a son and heir since he was six and still struggled to read.

The words didn’t hurt, not anymore. A familiar pain becomes white noise with enough exposure. No, what really dug in was the fact that his mother never said a word against it. Not even so much as a disapproving hum or a frown to bend those perfectly painted lips.

See, the kicker is that Steve  _ loves _ his mom. Tall, willowy, and all foreign exoticism: Orabella Harrington is every inch the gorgeous trophy wife of a self-made American businessman. But, she was also a brilliant woman. Few people knew that Missus Harrington was actually the reason why the business did so well. She would put on airs, flit from charity event to social club, and no one ever gave her a second thought. Always calling her the rose of the Harrington family for her beauty, inside and out, not even realizing the implication of thorns that came with it. Just the way she liked it.

Steve always thought of his mother more like those tiny, bell-shaped flowers she’d preferred. What were they again—Mary’s Tears? The ones that smelled like candied fruit and tricked you into thinking they were harmless. He’d learned the hard way about what preconceptions could do to unsuspecting people; he’d had a very frightening night and subsequent hospital stay to remind him.

To solidify the concept that ‘harmless’ could just as easily mean ‘deadly.’

He thinks that’s why her silent observance always strikes him straight down to his core. Because it’s his  _ mom _ . His stunning and serene and always-smiling-like-she’s-fondly-amused mother. Because she’s just like those little flowers and he still hasn’t  _ learned _ .

The poison still leaves him breathless, blurry-eyed. Lost.

_ “PREY?” _

The mouthful of too-dry steak chokes him. His eyes go wide, but he carefully keeps his head tilted toward his plate. Somewhere along the crook of his neck, a beetle troops unhurriedly toward his chest. He can feel the scrape of a shiny shell against his collarbone. Squeezing his eyes shut, he inhales slowly, thinks about parents and the rough definition of what they are. Mid-step the beetle suddenly turns soft and curious. Fluffy feelers tickle the lower curve of his Adam’s apple.

_ “PAAAAR-ENTSSSSS?” _

Steve flinches slightly as Wiggles voice changes to an otherworldly snarl then back, like for a moment a cougar has taken Its place. While subtle, it’s enough to trigger the  _ real _ threat in the room.

“Sit up straight already.” His father’s snappish voice is underlined by another rough grate of serrated knife against four hundred dollar porcelain. “It’s bad enough you slump around like a slob all the time; you could at least  _ pretend _ to have proper posture at our dinner table.”

“Yes, sir.”

Forcing himself to straighten, ignoring how it feels like he’s baring all his vulnerable spots to a predator, Steve faces his father. The scowl that meets him is enough to make him want to shrivel.

“Honestly,” his father continues, “I know that brain of yours is basically mush, but you’d think something would’ve at least gotten stuck in muscle memory. Lord knows how you’ve managed to stay captain of the basketball team when you're not even smart enough to remember the etiquette your mother and I have hammered into your thick skull since you were a boy.”

“Richard, if you ruin the finish on my grandmother’s china, we  _ will _ have words.”

Her chiding tone barely echoes over the slosh of more wine being poured into her glass, but she may as well have used a megaphone for how clearly it rings out in the spacious dining room. Brown eyes, so like Steve’s yet so different in her distant way, drift between the two Harrington men. Steve fights the urge to curl like a scolded child.

“Steve still has his last year in high school to straighten himself out. Anyway, dear, we need to plan for the trip to Genoa. My mother-”

Whatever else she says about Nonna Vanna is drowned out by the static hum of mosquitoes zipping around his head. It smells like something’s gone rotten. Heartbeat kicking up into a tarantella, Steve watches in numb surprise as Wiggles pokes Its furled head past the door jamb. He stares, frozen, as that blooming mouth spreads somewhat then eases into a trembling stillness. Like It’s waiting, preparing.

Before he can even reach the necessary willpower to panic, Wiggles is turning away from them. It putters off, body lax and mouth closed once more. Like they’re not even worth consideration. A pill-bug toddles behind his ear and balls itself contentedly; Steve absently lifts his fork back to his mouth to try smothering the hysterical laughter now beating at the back of his throat.

He continues to chew even when his mother stops and, with a delicate sniff, asks what’s making such a terrible stench.

After all, he’s used to it now.


	5. Sanitize, July 1984

He’s grateful for the help from Dustin and Jonathan. He is, he swears. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to complain about the absolute  _ nightmare _ of a mess that’s resulted after the basement remodel. The basement itself is mostly clean just due to their constant coming-and-going, but the kitchen and the living room are coated in filth. Dust and mud and grass stains and even the slight crust of chlorine. Steve scratches at the back of his head and frowns. He really hates muck.

“Yeah, this isn’t working for me,” he huffs and turns to head upstairs.

It’s time to deep clean.

*

Sometime between his changing into ratty old clothes and unearthing his cleaning supplies, Wiggles makes an appearance. It’s obviously curious about the goings-on. Even without the maddening tickle of moths fluttering along his skin, the way It prods and snuffles about is a dead give-away. Honestly, Steve finds the Demogorgon’s antics kind of cute. He bites back a smile when Wiggles spooks Itself by knocking over the broom.

Reaching out to pat the hissing beast, Steve croons, “Easy, buddy, it can’t hurt you.”

There’s the tippy-tap of tiny little paws along his cheeks. He shudders but his smile doesn’t slip. Ever since the strange mutual sickness they’d had back in June, the sensations he gets from Wiggles are more solid. Phantom animals have joined the—much more solid—bugs. This one almost feels like a mouse, all miniature peach-fuzz digits pattering rapid time, and he wonders if this is how Wiggles expresses sheepishness.

“Come on,” he snickers, “you can keep watch to make sure the big scary broom doesn’t take me out.”

*

Hands on his hips, he glowers at the far-too-smug Demogorgon crouching at the top of the stairs.

“Wiggles, drop it.”

Toothy petals squirm around the wooden handle of a duster. A bubbly chirp and the ghostly curl of a cat’s tail around his ankle. He can see those needle-fangs splintering the damn thing.

“I said-” With a loud crunch the poor tool is reduced to splinters and useless fluff. “God damn it, Wiggles!”

*

They’re both tense, watching each other for any sudden moves. Any sign of action. He can feel sweat making his shirt cling to him, can feel the taut readiness of a hunter about to strike coiling in his own limbs. With a snarl, Wiggles flares his face to full-spread. Steve jerks.

Talons skitter wildly against the tile of the kitchen as Wiggles lunges. It goes straight for sudsy strands, but the lack of traction makes It just slow enough for a miss. Thumping into the wall, Wiggles lurches back around and dives again. Steve yanks away. Those snapping jaws only just miss this time.

“You’ve gotta do better than that!” Steve howls and spins to keep the wet mop out of range once more.

Wiggles screeches and opts to bowl Steve over instead.

*

“You’re joking, right? Tell me this is a joke.”

Scuffing his toe against the carpet, Steve keeps his eyes pointed down. Wiggles isn’t far behind him, slumped down on all fours and very obviously trying to play ignorant. Scattered around them are the remains of what had once been a very expensive vacuum. There’s also a coating of grungy dust covering both of them like sugar on powdered doughnuts. It’s actually pretty funny.

Maybe not to Hopper, but to Steve.

A quick glance confirms that: Hopper is most definitely not amused.

“Kid, I swear to God, do we need to have you chaperoned?” Hopper groans, adjusting his hat with such resignation that Steve almost wants to call the Chief on his dramatics. Odds are that it wouldn’t go well for him, though. “First, it’s Jane having to get help because you’re sick. Then it’s Will sneaking over without anyone telling Joyce. Now this?”

Rolling his eyes, Steve sighs, “I was cleaning, Hop. It’s no big deal.”

“‘No big-?’ Do you seriously-? Harrington, I had three,  _ three _ , different calls about someone being attacked in your home!”

“Well, you can see I’m fine-”

“Yeah because this whole scene screams peachy. What the hell happened?”

Steve side-eyes the lounging Demogorgon, noting how Its shoulders go suspiciously still. He’s reminded of his Papa’s ancient Retriever. That old troublemaker would do something very similar whenever they discovered some mess she’d made, all carefully stiff poise and averted gaze. Wiggles may not have the big brown eyes to complete the look, but it’s close enough.

“Uh, turns out that Demogorgons...don’t like vacuums?”

He winces at the dead-eyed stare Hopper sends him. Wiggles takes this moment to slink, belly pressed tight to the floor, off toward the kitchen. A moment later, Steve’s trying not to twitch at every thud of the creature escaping into the basement. All the while, Hopper’s gaze stays absolutely flat.

“Are you telling me that you scared a demon from another world...with a  _ hoover _ ?”

Shrugging nervously, Steve mutters, “I just don’t think he likes loud noises…”

The drawn out sigh Hopper lets out actually makes Steve wince.

“I’m going back to the station. I’m going to say it was some kids playing a prank in the woods behind your house.  _ You _ are going to make sure your pet monster is out of range when you do chores from now on. I do  _ not _ want a repeat of this, am I clear?”

“Crystal, Hop…”

The chief leaves him alone in the war zone of a living room. Steve surveys the chaos before slumping back off toward the kitchen. He’s pretty sure there’s an old shop-vac in the garage, but he’s going to get some lunch first. Cleaning is a lot more exhausting with Wiggles around.


End file.
